<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>What You Can and Cannot Do when He Doesn't Know by Diana_Raven</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175787">What You Can and Cannot Do when He Doesn't Know</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/Diana_Raven'>Diana_Raven</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drinking, Gift Exchange, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Spin the Bottle, blue balls with no release, giftfic, oh no! one bed what do?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:14:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,064</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175787</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/Diana_Raven</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassie, of course, can get away with asking that. Cassie can get away with practically anything.<br/>Tim can’t.<br/>~<br/>Kon can't.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent, past Cassie Sandsmark/Kon-El | Conner Kent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What You Can and Cannot Do when He Doesn't Know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peanutbutterassistant/gifts">Peanutbutterassistant</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy holidays Rayna! yay! I'm your secret santa!!<br/>This was fun to write, I hope you like it! &lt;3</p><p>also the soundtrack to this fic is both she by dodie and heathers by conan gray cuz VIBESSSS</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="ctl">
  <span>He smells like cool summer nights and hot grassy fields. He tastes like apple pie a la mode, of all things. Their tongues don’t touch but Tim can taste the vanilla. The crispness of the apple. Bite of the cinnamon. He can almost imagine the cool of the ice cream against his burning skin. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon breaks away from him, and Tim sits back down, focusing on everything, anything else. Because he knows that if he looks back at Kon all he’ll be able to taste is pie. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon leans back across from Tim and bends over to spin the bottle. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>Huh,” Kon says and grins up at Tim as he flicks. Around, around the bottle spins and Tim tries to watch it disinterestedly. It’s not so hard when what he would rather look at—what he can’t look at—is Kon. “You’re a good kisser.”</span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim is used to brushing these compliments off. It’s the only way he can respond without letting Kon know. Because Kon <em>can’t</em> know. He just… <em>can’t</em>. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim licks his lips and hopes Kon doesn’t know it’s to taste that vanilla again. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>Thanks, I try.”</span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>The bottle slows. It scrapes against the floor until it finally coasts to a stop and lands on… Tim looks up. Cassie smiles. She leans over. Kon sweeps a hand around her waist to support her. Anita ducks out of the way, practically batting Cassie’s chest out of her face. Bart rolls his eyes and stretches out across Tim’s lap since there’s no room in Kon’s dorm.</span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>No tongues you two. We’d like to actually <em>finish</em> this game some time,” Cissie says from her perch on Kon’s minifridge. She’d moved Kon’s hotplate (his only other appliance) onto his bed. </span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie flips her the bird, but it’s good-natured. Cissie barks out a laugh. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim sits with his back resting on Kon’s bed. With him and Cassie both at MetU, it’s easiest for them to meet up (since they barely see each other as civilians these days) there. Kon barely has any room in it for anything other than the bed, a minifridge and hotplate, and the squished desk which overflows with papers in the corner. They’re squashed together. Cissie cleaned off the fridge so she could sit on top to give more room but still, with the seven of them (Ray couldn’t make it) Greta is still practically in Kon’s lap (and Bart<em> is</em> lying in Tim’s, but he would be doing that even if he had room). Honestly, though, Tim’s grateful. Were he shifted just a few more spots over (he’d required the bed because of his ‘old man back’ as Bart liked to call it) that would be <em>him</em> nearly on top of Kon. Another thing that can’t happen. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie does give him a chaste kiss (or what passes as chaste for the two of them), and leans back down. She takes a swig of beer. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>Cassie, you wearing lip balm?” Kon asks. </span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie pulls a small plastic egg-shaped thing from her pocket and tosses it to him. He uncaps it and sniffs, eyebrows going up in appreciation. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>I like cherry,” he says. He throws it back. </span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie leans over to spin the empty beer bottle. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>Were you at Ma’s earlier?” Cassie asks. “You taste like pie.”</span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon laughs, smiling wide. Tim’s chest aches. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie, of course, can get away with asking that. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>Yeah! Really? You could taste that?”</span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie can get away with practically anything. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>Sure!”</span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim can’t. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon turns to Tim. “Could you?”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>The bottle lands on Cissie. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim shrugs. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">“<span>What did Tim taste like?” Bart asks curiously. </span></p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie settles herself back down and Cissie spins the bottle. Around, around it goes. Scraping, scraping.</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon shrugs. “Nothing much,” he says. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>And that’s why.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie shivers when Anita opens the window (“the smell is just too unbearable, mon. I feel like I’m dying in Doritos farts,”) and Kon pulls out his baskets of clothes from under the bed (since there’s no closet or dresser in the room and Kon still hasn’t bought one). He does this by leaning across Tim, and when Tim shivers he offers Tim one of his sweaters also. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>There are many things that Cassie can do, but that Tim can’t. That, really, any of their friends can. For Greta or Bart no one would bat an eye if they took Kon’s jacket or sweater. Not even if their cheeks were pink when Kon finished fiddling with their collar or jumped at the startling electricity from his touch. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Now, Kon’s barely inches from Tim’s face. His left arm supports himself against the edge of the bed on the other side of Tim’s head and he notices the way Kon’s bicep flexes, can’t <em>not</em> notice it the same way he couldn’t not lick his lips, as Kon makes a grunt and tries to shove his right arm further under the bed to find the right basket full of sweaters and jackets. Tim’s always known that Kon is broad, but now when he stretches himself around Tim it’s even clearer that someone like Kon should not be living in this matchbox. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>If only so he doesn’t have to press himself against Tim’s hips every time he wants to get something from behind him. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon resurfaces and hands the sweater to Cassie who wraps herself up in it. He settles back across from Tim, and Bart curls up in the spot he recently vacated. The air is cold where Kon isn’t and Tim takes a few deep breaths in place of a similarly icy shower. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>He’s warm enough anyway with the booze thrumming through his veins. He wrote off this trip as a work expense, and technically he is working tomorrow—lunch meeting with S.T.A.R Labs—so he should be sober by then. He shouldn’t be drinking nearly as much as he’s put away so far, but it’s hard not to when Kon keeps making excuses to be nearer to Cassie. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim should have expected this, he knows. After all, ever since Kon’s come back the he and Kon have both been very busy. And now, with Kon and Cassie going to the same college… with them living within a couple blocks of one another… It shouldn’t make much a difference, especially since both of them can and regularly do fly around the Earth at least once a week, but clearly the proximity has changed their relationship. They smile secretly at one another again, like they did when they were-</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>When they were… </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim watches Cassie fiddle with the sleeves of Kon’s sweater, which goes longer than her own hands and is something that Ma clearly made him (there’s a black and red S symbol on it, making Tim’s skin itch). His gaze drags down to the three six-packs Cissie brought with her. There are still a few left, and Tim wonders if anyone would notice if he just-</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Tim?”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim looks up, and Greta is kneeling over the bottle. The bottle’s mouth is pointed at him. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Oh. Sorry,” Tim says. He leans forward and kisses Greta and settles back on her heels. It’s Tim turn again. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"You okay?” Anita asks him, concerned. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim nods. “Just a little drunker than I thought,” Tim says and he thinks his words don’t slur too much. “Didn’t eat a lot today.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Bro!” Cissie hits him on the arm friendly-like. “You should have said something. I bet Bart is starving.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"I am,” Bart agrees but before he’s fully on his feet, Tim has him by the back of his pants. He’s not the only one and Kon is a few seconds behind him on getting to his feet—hands up and knees bent like an umpire. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Friends don’t let friends run tipsy,” Kon says. “I’ll order a pizza.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"And cheesy, chili fries!” Bart calls. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon nods sagely. “And cheesy, chili fries.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie snorts. She leans back on the heels of her hands. “There goes your nice breath.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon grins down at her and nudges her with his foot. It pokes at Cassie’s thigh and when she doesn’t swat it away, it inches up to her waist. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Cassie’s right,” Anita says. “No more spin the bottle after that. I know what all y’all like on your pizzas and I don’t want to taste that.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon’s sock-covered toe makes its way higher and Cassie raises her eyebrows at him, a smile peeking at her lips. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Greta nods in agreement, but Cissie—a fellow heathen who enjoys pineapple on her pizza—scoffs. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon pokes her again and this time Cassie grabs at it before he can pull it away and then makes a face of disgust but doesn’t drop it. Kon hops wildly, completely off-balance now. He almost tumbles over Anita who flattens herself out of the way of their almost domestic foolishness and-</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim forces his eyes to the bottle on the ground. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Scrape, scrape, he spins it. To distract him. Not for anything else. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Scrape, scrape. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>But it stops, the dizzying spinning slowing until nothing. And lands on Cassie. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim closes his eyes. No one’s paying attention to the bottle, wouldn’t notice if he nudged it over to Anita. And he doesn’t need to imagine how her cherry lip balm tastes, now probably mingled with the beer. Tim likes cherries. He loves Cassie, he truly does. What’s not to love? She’s perfect. A demigoddess (in all of the ways, literal and metaphorical). But that never makes any of this any easier. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cherries, turned sour. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie lets Kon go and he stumbles back, and trips over Greta. He knocks a remaining beer over and it rolls across the floor, just in arms’ reach. All three of them burst into laughter. Raucous and cheerful. Tim takes the beer and pops it open. He barely brings it to his lips when a stray foot from Kon and Greta trying to detangle themselves startles him and the beer pours down his shirt. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Aw, ew,” Cassie groans, dodging the spray. She has Tim’s arms up over his head and shirt half-off as quickly as Tim would have it on his own, were he not a little too buzzed. She tosses the balled up shirt at Kon. It smacks him in the face. Cassie has very good aim. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span><em>Now</em>, Tim shivers because he is cold. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Hey, Kon! You got anything for Tim to wear?” Cassie asks. Because Tim never would. Because he feels himself flush at the idea, not that he hasn’t worn Kon’s clothes before but those were always in situations generally involving copious amounts of slime and/or muck, usually vomited at them from some type of monster and that’s completely different. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Sure.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim <em>needs</em> to get himself together. So, he says, his voice rough, “under the bed?”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Yeah, wait, no, lemme-” Kon flounders his way over to Tim, carefully missing the pool of alcohol on the floor and presses himself against Tim once more with complete abandon. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>He doesn’t know. He’ll never know. How the goosebumps ride up Tim’s back and arms. How the heat of Kon’s skin makes him burn. How, somehow, he still smells like everything light and sunny in the world and that makes Tim as sober as if he hadn’t drunk anything at all. Or maybe drunker, just on Kon. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon comes out and hands Tim a ball of black. Tim frowns and… “is this one of your Superboy tees?”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon shrugs sheepishly. Tim’s heart wobbles inside his chest. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Laundry day.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim is about to pull the shirt on, when Kon stops him and tiptoes around everyone. He disappears for a second out the hall and comes back with a damp hand-towel. He squishes down between Cassie and Tim (and Cassie and Anita shift into his past spot to make room) and swipes the cloth across Tim’s chest, tongue sticking slightly out of his mouth in concentration. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim’s own mouth goes dry. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"I can do that.”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Already done,” Kon says flippantly. Like he didn’t just clean Tim off. Like he didn’t just-Tim doesn’t even know what to think. “Man, you are wasted, huh?” Kon drops the towel to the floor to sop up the puddle. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>"Not wasted!” Tim argues, and he <em>isn’t</em>. He’s just intoxicated with <em>Kon</em>. Not that he can <em>say </em>that. Tim proves this by snatching the Superboy shirt from Kon’s fingers (because the guy looked like he was unfolding it to <em>dress</em> Tim, and Tim wouldn’t have been able to handle <em>that</em>) and pulls it on by himself. He holds his hands up, and says, “<em>see</em>?”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon rolls his eyes and pulls his phone out. “Pizza, right?”</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>A breeze filters in through the open window. It ruffles Kon’s curls, but he doesn’t even notice. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Cassie shivers in Kon’s sweater. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim pulls the S shirt tighter around him. The sleeves aren’t long enough to cover all of his goosebumps.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon sees the girls to the door. They’re staying at Cassie’s because as much as Kon would like to house all of them for the night, they won’t fit in his room. Hell, he can barely fit the three of the boys. Bart unzips one sleeping bag and shoves it to every corner of the open space on the floor and unzips another for a blanket, even though all three of them know that he’ll kick it off in the night, as he always does, which is why he is sleeping on the floor while Kon and Tim share the bed. Unfortunately sharing a bed with Bart always includes bruises, even for Supers. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>So Kon and Tim will be sharing the bed. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Not a big deal, Kon thinks to himself. Tim slips by him on his way to brush his teeth (Kon’s t-shirt slips off of his shoulder just so and Kon wants to just reach out and touch the beautiful exposed skin. Every glimpse of Tim’s skin is treasured, even to this day, Kon can’t ignore it. So his formative years of a masked and not-spandex clad crush had a lasting effect on him, so what, no biggie, nope, none at all, no-). </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>But Kon can’t think about that now. Can’t think <em>anything</em> about Tim like that. Not ever. Not anymore. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>He can’t risk himself again. Can’t have that rejection <em>again</em>. That pain of someone he loves turning him down. When Cassie did after he’d come back, she’d done it for both of them. She had, no matter what Kon didn’t want to admit at the time, been right. He’d been in love with Tim, and Cassie and Kon—as wonderful as he felt when they were together—weren’t good for one another. The Year had taught Cassie that. It hadn’t mattered that Kon now saw that she was right, reveling in their <em>friendship.</em> Nights spent studying in the library or when Cassie had come out to him… all of that… Kon loved her, but not in the same way. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Not in the way he had, once. Not in the way he did now, for Tim. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim comes back and they settle into bed. Kon’s bed is not large, but it’s big enough when Kon plasters himself against the wall so that they’re not touching. They can’t be. Kon can’t-he can’t bring himself to anymore than he already has. Every time when he had to get something out from under his bed, and there Tim had been, plastered up against him without a care in the world. He had to have been pointedly ignoring Kon’s labored breathing, being so close. Then when he’d spilled all over himself—Kon had been so distracted by the bare, scarred, perfect skin that he’d already touched the cloth to those sturdy muscles and by then he couldn’t <em>stop</em> or that would be weird, right?</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Right?</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>But Tim—Tim missed nothing. Never. There is no way he hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t noticed how Kon had lingered after their kiss. How Kon had been disappointed when Cassie had reapplied her chapstick, and that cherry wiped away the taste of <em>Tim</em>. The smell of his conditioner. His minty breath. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Now, Tim lies next to him. His eyes are closed for once, and Kon can only see him with his superpowers. The way his lips hang slightly open. The dark smudges under his eyes, from lack of sleep. Kon’s shirt—<em>Kon’s shirt!</em>—rucks up, exposing more pocked skin. Kon wants to touch Tim so badly. His jet hair falls into his face. To just brush it from his face, maybe… well, more, honestly. It wouldn’t be so hard, Tim is only inches away. Kon’s fingers twitch, but he pulls them closer to himself. He would never disturb Tim as beautiful as this. Kon isn’t the photographer of the two, but he can imagine the Polaroid he’d shoot. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon’s had too much to drink. The wind, still blowing through the open window above him, is muddling his brain. He reaches up, careful not to disturb Tim (he dare not), and closes it. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Below him, Tim lets out a soft, almost imperceptible moan. Kon glances, down, afraid he’s awoken him, but he hasn’t. Tim settles back into sleep, curling up and clutching his hands in Kon’s shirt. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>In Kon’s <em>shirt</em>. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon settles back down on the bed, and watches Tim a little more. Sinking in. Drowning. In his soft breaths, in his pounding heartbeats. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Kon can’t lose this. But he can’t keep himself, as he couldn’t all night, from reaching out. His fingers are barely a hair’s width from one of Tim’s hands. The closest he’ll let himself go. And if he stretches out his aura… maybe… maybe-</span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>Tim sighs in his sleep, and relaxes. Tension floods from his shoulders. Kon’s heart thuds loudly in his ears. His chest tightens. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>And Tim’s fingers are no longer ever so close and yet much too far. Kon watches as they graze his own, and the fist relaxes and slowly links, intertwined, with his. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>In the morning, Kon’ll pretend to ignore it. He won’t mention the way it warms his heart. He’ll watch Tim leave and joke about how Tim can keep the shirt (it’s not a joke, it never is). He’ll hug Tim goodbye and wish for more, knowing he can’t. Can’t lose this. Can’t have this. </span>
</p><p class="ctl">
  <span>And yes, tomorrow, he won’t be able to, but tonight, for just right now, he can. So he doesn’t move his hand away, and finally closes his eyes. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>... and yes, the cherry chapstick is a reference to gay!cassie</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>